Month: March 2011

A reader writes:

I think your reader is misrepresenting the nature of the Greek War for Independence.  It was not about democracy, but rather ethnic nationalism. The intervention of Russian, French and British forces (the Battle of Navarino) was also not inspired by a desire to spread liberal democracy. 

Czarist Russia, ruled by the autocrat Nicholas I, was the most pro-Greek of the three powers because the Greeks shared the Russians' Orthodox Christian faith.  Spreading democracy was never a Russian goal.  The more liberal powers, France and Britain, intervened because of domestic political pressure from philohellenic communities in  those countries who dreamed of liberating the cradle of Western Civilization from its Turkish Muslim overlords.  Again, democracy was not part of the equation.

Your reader also makes it sound as though the newly independent Greece was something approaching a liberal democratic country, but it was not. The Greek state created in the aftermath of the war was governed by a bumbling absolute monarch wannabe.  It took nearly a quarter century to replace him with a modern constitutional monarch.

I also do not entirely agree that Metternich was on the wrong side of history.  It's true that he defended the illiberal power of the European aristocracy, but like most aristocrats at the time, he was peace-loving cosmopolitan.  He opposed, not just democracy, but also the type of ethnic nationalism that was stirred up by the Napoleonic Wars.  Knowing, as we now do, the horror of ethnic strife that would eventually come to Europe, it is hard not to concede that Metternich had a point.

None of this – not one iota – is in any way analogous to the revolution in Libya.  The Libyans are having a civil war.  We have intervened on the side of rebels, who have no hope of taking control of the whole country.  My opposition to the intervention is based, as yours seems to be, on not knowing what the hell we are trying to accomplish.  What is our goal?  An independent Benghazi state?  An autonomous zone needing constant Western protection?  Are we just trying to give the rebels a fighting chance?  Are we willing to abandon them if they don't succeed in that chance?  I don't know.  Do you?  Does anyone?

(Image: Theodoros Vryzakis (oil painting, 1852, Benaki Museum, Athens) illustrates Bishop Germanos of old Patras blessing the Greek banner at Agia Lavra on the outset of the national revolt against the Turks on 25 March 1821.)

In conservative Orange County, it's considered charming when straight people do it:

For Forrest Lunsway, reaching a century of life was only the half of it. On his 100th birthday Saturday, Lunsway married his 93-year-old girlfriend, Rose Pollard. The wedding – a surprise for most in attendance – was a long time coming. Lunsway and Pollard met almost three decades ago. They were both looking for dance partners after their significant others passed away, and mutual friends set them up on a blind date Dec. 18, 1983. It was a Christmas party at the Long Beach Senior Center and the two danced the night away.

Lunsway asked Pollard out on a date, but he lived in Cypress and she lived in Capistrano Beach. "He lived 40 miles away. It was what you call geographically undesirable. I didn't think it would last," Pollard said. But the two would meet halfway and go on dates. Sometimes, Lunsway would drive to pick up Pollard for a night out and then drive home. "If someone will do that, you know that's something," Pollard said. About 20 years later, Lunsway sold his house in Cypress and moved to Capistrano Beach to live with Pollard. Then he asked her to marry him. "I told him I would marry him on his 100th birthday," Pollard said, laughing. "I had never intended for him to remember." But he did, and Vanna Murphy, who runs senior activities at the Dana Point Community Center, got wind of the promise. So she started planning a wedding. The trick was it had to be a surprise – neither Lunsway nor Pollard wanted family issues getting in the way.

Congrats to the newlyweds.

An infographic.

From August, 2009. Sally Kohn scoffs:

For the record, 83% of Americans think U.S. foreign policy should focus on partnering with other countries “according to shared ideas of what is best for the world as a whole”. A mere 16% think we should use our power solely or even primarily to protect “U.S. interests”.

One has to wonder if McCain and Lieberman were thinking about “what is best for the world as a whole” when they were patting Gadhafi on the back.

Not so fast.

Leave your jewellery at home – but don't forget your pumps.

"We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore," – Perditta Nabbous, wife of Libya's slain citizen journalist Mohammed Nabbous, to Blake Hounshell.

Huckabee becomes the second potential candidate to advocate repeal of the repeal of the gay military ban if he became president. Pawlenty was the first. Even more worryingly, Huckabee seems to believe that the military should decide its own rules, rather than be subservient to the civilian government.

Huckabee, for all his bonhomie, is a radical Christianist. And the GOP may not be using the anti-gay card to win elections any more … but that doesn't mean that they won't, if given power, do all they can to restigmatize and discriminate against gay citizens because they're gay. And in the primaries, there is already a competition to be the most anti-gay candidate.

Anne Applebaum argued that Obama's near silence on Libya is an asset. Judah Grunstein seconds:

President Barack Obama's relative silence leading up to this intervention not only lowers those barriers to exit that Scoblete, like so many others, is concerned about, but also widens the scope for politics in finding an end-state even now that military action has been engaged.

Larison builds on this thought:

Grunstein is right that there are relatively low barriers to exiting Libya right now, but pressure continues to build for a more ambitious mission that involves toppling Gaddafi. British and French political leaders seem to take it for granted that this is the objective. If Obama does not publicly commit the U.S. to achieve this, there is still a way out, and Obama should take it. The U.S. may be able to hand off running the no-fly zone to another government or to NATO. This is uncertain at the moment, but it may happen. The U.S. could then fairly quickly end its participation in the war before it escalates.

Tom Ricks likewise thinks other nations should now maintain the no-fly zone:

We have done what we set out to do in Libya. We kicked the door down, and with radars and SAM sites degraded, have made it possible for lesser air forces to patrol the skies over Qaddafi. We should now say, OK, we have created the conditions, time for you all to have the courage of your convictions. The goal now for the United States, I think, is a negative one: To not be conducting a no-fly zone over Libya 5 years or even 5 months from now.

Count me in. Since this impulsive and reckless decision was driven by the allies, Britain and France, they should now take full ownership of it. I prefer a non-NATO command structure, to reduce the American imprint. And good luck, Sarko, with the Arab states.

It's also a way in which Obama can argue that this is not simply an "on-the-fly" action to salve the Clintons' conscience over Rwanda, or encourage Samantha Power's notion that, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." That's awful advice at home, but lethal advice abroad.

The key thing is to avoid leadership in this case. Yes, I just wrote that. If the French and British take ownership of this selfless act of imperial compassion, Obama can claim to be advancing American values but not enmeshing US troops in a third endless war. Many on the right will hate this, but some on the right will see its logic. My own view is that the American conservative public (not the neocons) would love for the allies to take more military responsibility for their own backyard. I have no problems with the EU or France or even Britain pursuing the same kind of self-defeating, fiscally crippling, decade-long wars that the US, under Bush-Cheney, so helpfully innovated. They're sovereign nations. If they want to fight such a proxy war for an unknowable amount of time, let them.

I don't expect wiser, more focused powers, such as India and China and Russia to do much more than revel in Schadenfreude. At this point, they have gotten quite good at it.

(Photo: France's president Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech after a summit on enforcing a UN resolution against Moamer Kadhafi's forces, on March 19, 2011 at the Elysee palace in Paris. Sarkozy told Kadhafi to stop attacks on Libyan rebels 'to avoid the worst' as French warplanes began overflying Libya. By Lionel Bonaventure/Getty.)

A reader writes:

Your reader wrote: "To me, a Christian wearing a Star of David reminds me of Jews for Jesus."

I should remind both of you that this is no mere hypothetical. Palin's Wasilla Bible Church is in fact closely affiliated with J4J. If you recall, there was a little controversy in 2008 when the head of J4J, David Brickner, who had spoken there before, declared in the church that the Jewish victims of suicide bombings in Israel were being punished for their failure to accept Christ. At the time, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb told the press that Palin was not present the day Brickner spoke and did not share Brickner's views.